1. Field of the Invention
Methods and apparatuses consistent with the present invention relate to a user interface, and more particularly, to browsing a plurality of broadcast programs which can enable a user to browse a plurality of broadcast programs using electronic program guide (EPG) information and/or TV viewing records of the user regarding the broadcast programs.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, thousands of broadcast programs are aired every day on hundreds of broadcast channels, including terrestrial, cable, satellite television (TV), and digital multimedia broadcast (DMB) channels. User interfaces for browsing broadcast programs may use a related art broadcast program browsing method that involves inputting a channel number or sequentially increasing or decreasing the channel number until a channel of interest is encountered.
However, the number of broadcast channels has increased to the extent that a user cannot memorize all of the broadcast channels provided. Accordingly, a user may not be able to learn such information as the channel on which a broadcast program of interest is to be aired, or what broadcast programs are currently being aired, by using the related art broadcast program browsing method of sequentially increasing or decreasing a channel number.
Even though the related art broadcast program browsing method of sequentially increasing or decreasing a channel number has the aforementioned drawbacks, this method has been widely used because of simplicity of manipulation. In other words, when broadcast programs are one-dimensionally arranged, a user can browse broadcast channels simply by sequentially increasing or decreasing the channel number.
Since channel numbers are rarely associated with the attributes of broadcast programs, the channel browsing efficiency of the related art broadcast program browsing method of sequentially increasing or decreasing a channel number is low. However, the related art broadcast program browsing method of sequentially increasing or decreasing a channel number has been one of the most-widely used broadcast program browsing methods due to simplicity and convenience of manipulation.
In the meantime, as EPG information becomes commonplace, information that can be used when browsing broadcast channels or broadcast programs has diversified, and an increasing number of browsing methods have been developed. Related art EPG-based user interfaces allow a user to learn information regarding broadcast programs currently being aired on TV or broadcast programs to be aired on TV within a predetermined period of time, and provide users with not only channel number information but also additional information provided by an EPG.
A variety of EPG-based user interfaces have been developed. FIG. 1A presents a related art EPG-based user interface. Referring to the EPG-based user interface presented in FIG. 1A, broadcast programs are vertically arranged according to their channels, and are horizontally arranged in order of air time. In general, the titles of broadcast programs are displayed in a user interface. The titles of broadcast programs belonging to different genres may be represented with different background colors or different icons. In the case of the user interface presented in FIG. 1A, there is a clear limit in the amount of information that can be displayed on a screen, and thus, it is difficult to display broadcast program information on the screen such that all the broadcast program information can be viewed at a glance.
As a modification of the aforementioned related art user interfaces, a related art method of allowing a user to control the number of broadcast program titles that can be displayed on a screen by providing a user interface with a zoom-in function, as illustrated in FIG. 1B, has been suggested. EPG information enables a variety of broadcast program searches based on the attributes of broadcast programs. Thus, a method of classifying broadcast programs into one or more groups according to their attributes (e.g., genres) and displaying the broadcast programs in units of the groups, as illustrated in FIG. 1C, has been widely used.
In short, related art user interfaces capable of browsing broadcast programs using EPG information accompany more complicated input sequences than the related art broadcast program browsing method of one-dimensionally increasing or decreasing a channel number. Also, related art EPG-based user interfaces classify broadcast programs only in consideration of the attributes of the broadcast programs, and thus fail to reflect user preferences regarding the broadcast programs.